1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processor or the like for outputting a color image obtained by a scanner to a monitor or a printing apparatus, or outputting a color image displayed on a monitor to a printing apparatus appropriately.
2. Description of the Prior Art
When a color image is outputted from a monitor and a printing apparatus in accordance with the same image data, it is difficult to get complete color matching between the color on the display screen and the color on the printed matter. In addition, it is also difficult to reproduce the completely same color as an original when obtaining an original color image by a scanner and outputting it from a monitor or a printing apparatus. Therefore, in order to reproduce a color that is as similar as possible, a color matching technique is proposed.
A standard of the color matching is defined by International Color Consortium (ICC) so as to promote standardization of the same. Thus, it has been inevitable for manufacturers to adapt apparatuses handling color data to the ICC standard. In general, color characteristic data of an apparatus that supports the ICC standard is called an “ICC profile”. The ICC profile is represented by a look-up table (LUT) or table data for a matrix conversion, and this format is based on the ICC standard.
A designer of an apparatus can design the ICC profile freely within the ICC standard. The ICC standard has a flexibility and a high degree of freedom, so a designer can determine a lattice point pitch of LUT and a data bit length of each value rather freely, for example. Conventionally, in order to maintain the high flexibility of the ICC standard in a process of a color conversion, the color conversion process is performed by a software process as described in Japanese unexamined patent publication No. 2002-94823.
Recently, a print engine that is adopted for a printing apparatus, a copying machine and a multifunction peripheral (MFP) has become faster and faster.
However, the color conversion process (color matching) performed by a software process as the conventional method requires a lot of time, so the performance thanks to the high speed of the print engine cannot be used sufficiently.
In addition, a multifunction device having functions of color print, color copy, color scanner and others has become a main stream recently. Such a multifunction device has to perform various types of color matching process for each of the functions.